Ms. Podorefsky’s recent article about beavers (Beavers damming in Hopkinton) missed one important point. Most conflicts between humans and beavers can be solved non-lethally; trapping is usually not necessary.
If they continue to pursue trapping, Hopkinton officials will eventually learn the hard way that it’s impossible to permanently solve problems with beavers by killing them in any manner; more beavers will return, plug culverts, and rebuild dams repeatedly if the habitat suits them- as it obviously does at a few locations in Hopkinton. Furthermore, under the law, the Board of Health trapping permits are only supposed to be granted in situations where public health and safety are at risk – not to prevent a future potential problem.
Linda HuebnerDeputy Director, Advocacy Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
If Linda sounds familiar, she should. I met her through Mike Callahan and she did a lovely job on his testimonials section of the DVD. Nice Op-ed Linda, and I’m so glad you wrote! Their pretend surprise irritated me so much I could only have written about what was missing between their EARS.
Did you get the new copy of Bay Nature this month? Well just in case you haven’t read it yet there is one article in particular that should interest you. And if you don’t get Bay Nature you should, or you might try the subscription donated to our silent auction for a year before you realize you can’t live with out it. Recognize this adorable photo? You’ll probably want to go read the entire article here. Hopefully we’ll get plenty of interest for this year’s beaver festival!
Now for a fun article from Seattle which clearly has the kindest comments you will ever read in the vast history of beaver reporting. Take a peak and see if I’m wrong.
‘You can’t imagine seeing somebody eat a tree in Seattle’
Cheryl caught a great moment with one of our kits the other night and we’ll be out tonight to make sure the foot traffic behaves itself by the beaver dams!
Kit by Cheryl Reynolds
And finally a taste of things to come from Amelia yesterday, there will be changes but this is looking sharp!
Naive child that I am, I once believed that the function of a Conservation Commissions, (charged with protecting wetlands and wildlife and developed as a function of the Wetlands Protection Act), was to actually, you know, CONSERVE things. Silly, silly, Heidi. What was I thinking?
In this beautiful weather, beaver damming can cause some not-so-beautiful problems if proper precautions are not taken. “Beavers are out there this year,” said Don McAdam, Conservation Administrator. The Conservation Commission’s job is to protect public and private ground water supply, fisheries, and wild life habitats – even from something as seemingly natural as local beaver populations.
That’s right Don, thank goodness the conservation commission was there to protect Hopkinton from all that NATURE. Anything could happen if you weren’t vigilantly at the ready, killing every water-saver that paddles onto your shores. I guess maybe you should be more specific about what you’re trying to conserve? I can just bet there are more like you at home.
Beavers dam culverts (pipes that go under roadways) and can cause flooding if the dam should break or block pipes, said Public Works Director John Westerling. The animals can pollute water, as well, he added.
Just so you know, Hopkinton is literally 70 miles away from Beaver Solutions. Mike could drive over and fix those culverts in an hour. I wrote of course but they haven’t responded. I shouldn’t be surprise. You have to work very hard to be this ignorant so close to MIT.
Robin is no longer in the hood. After numerous sightings in the Birch Hill Drive area, the land-locked beaver that made the news last month has been caught today at the Mount Edward grocery.
This week store staff were surprised to find the beaver almost up the steps on the way into the store, said Chuck Gallison, wildlife biologist with the provincial government. He said that his department was giving the beaver the nickname Robin, as in Robin Hood of the Sherwood Forest.
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Photo of a beaver trying to enter the Mount Edward grocery on Mount Edward Road in Sherwood. This photo was taken on Wed., June 26.
I don’t know if I can take many more of these terrifyingly lost dispersers looking for a place to call home. I am so grateful ours have an excellent waterway to travel. You may or may not remember that PEI has a stunningly bad record when it comes to beaver management – prompting one of my favorite graphics of all time. Their head of wildlife argued vociferously with Wikipedia Rick that the animals weren’t native until he produced an 1830’s document that showed they were. Well, I guess this story is slightly better than their usual but it still makes me very nervous.
With no place to go, the animal stayed put until other wildlife staff arrived with a net, then a cage. The beaver is at this moment on its way to a secret but secluded location on P.E.I., far from the network of culverts it had been using to elude capture for months now.
More beaver stupid from the Taos internet story which has apparently gone viral. My inbox was flooded with stories about the delicious crime from places as far away as Germany and Australia. I suppose I can look forward to days more of this at least. If my internet is spared the voracious beaver-appetite I will let you know.
It made me think about how ready the world is to report and repeat bad news about beavers, and what an uphill batter it is to get the real story out. Even Bay Nature has been reluctant to talk about the salmon issue yet, and got forbid the AP should pick up on a story of a flow device working! I am reminded of an old John Donne poem…
Now if you’re like me you need something nice after all those irritants. Beaver friend Glenn Hori was down the other night to photograph two kits and five adults. Enjoy!
Attitudes toward beavers were more likely to be negative among people who had experienced problems with beaver, and intensity of negative attitudes increased as the severity of problem experiences increased (Siemer et al. 2004a, Jonker et al. 2006). Norms about lethal management also were closely correlated with problem experience. Acceptance of lethal management tended to be higher among people who had personally experienced problems with beaver (Siemer et al. 2004a, Jonker et al. 2009). When presented with a range of interaction scenarios, people who had experienced beaver damage were more likely to accept lethal management actions in any scenario where beavers had a negative impact on people.
So people who are inconvenienced by beavers, (or worried they’ll be inconvenienced by beavers) are more comfortable with killing them than folks who’ve just seen them on the TV? And this gets published as research? I am reminded of Horatio saying sarcastically to Hamlet,
“There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave to tell us this!”
This study revisits the Massachusetts beaver issue and the least-liked voter decision apparently in the history of the world. A 1996 referendum that indicated folks wanted it to be harder to kill beavers cruelly. This is vociferously blamed for ruining every sense of balance the state had previously developed. Even beaver defenders thought the the referendum had ‘tricked’ the voters (although how straight forward are most ballot issues, I ask you?) Once it was passed, alarming reports filled the air like spring pollen. Authorities said the population subsequently exploded because even though you could still use lethal techniques and even though you could use the old methods as long as one of 9 tiny conditions were met, it still took five minutes more time to kill them than it used to and that created anarchy. (Folks in the bay state are very busy and obviously no one has 5 more minutes to spare killing beavers.)
Hence the article, which is based on public attitudes towards beavers and a questionnairre that got mailed to folks who complained about beavers (and for appearances sake, some folks who didn’t) in 2002. Surprisingly, the folks who DIDN”T COMPLAIN didn’t return the survey as much as the people who were mad. (Gosh!) And the two groups said admittedly different things in general, but the researchers knew just how to handle this conundrum to get the results they wanted.
We detected some differences in each state when nonrespondents were compared to respondents (for a detailed description of respondent-nonrespondent comparisons, see Jonker 2003 and Siemer et al. 2004a). Although we found differences between respondents and nonrespondents, we decided not to adjust the data to account for potential nonresponse bias.
Because really, who would you want to do that? It doesn’t matter and it further doesn’t matter that the data for this study is 11 years old. This study is very important. They obviously only questioned residents who were smarter than the average bear. They were PSYCHIC! How do I know they were psychic? Read for yourself.
Sixty-one percent of respondents in the High beaver density group perceived a statewide increase in beaver damage over the previous 5 years. Only 24% of respondents in the Low beaver density group perceived that beaver damage had increased.
Remember, this was 2002. A scant 6 years after the voters passed the referendum to outlaw trapping, which the politicians took another few months to craft into law. Which means it wouldn’t have affected the 96 season. The state only has 2754 square miles of water, so there were a limited number of beavers to start with. Even if there were 1000 yearlings poised to disperse that first year, research tells us they mostly couldn’t breed until their third year or 1999. Now we’ve seen first hand that the first time a beaver has kits the numbers are low. So 500 kits born that year and 1ooo born the following year. Meanwhile a steady stream of yearlings is marching on with similar successes. Lets assume, of course, that these kits weren’t killed some other way or exposed to round worm parasite and die like nearly half of ours did. Let’s assume that the conditions in Massachusetts are so pristine and predator-free that the population gets as big as it can possibly be in those 5 years and increases by 500%.
I suppose 5000 new kits could be impactful. but remember none of these off spring will be ready to disperse until the year 2002 when this study was done, so its hard to imagine folks were feeling the burden of the booming population when these questionnaires were being filled out. Just to be clear, that means folks who wrote that the population was EXPLODING were actually writing that they were IMAGINING it would explode in the future and blaming their beaver problems on the new laws without actually understanding what was happening.
Heidi, you’re so picky. What about the part of the survey where they talk about flow devices and how attitudes change with successful installation? Don’t be silly. They didn’t mention flow devices at all. That’s right, in this entire discussion about WAC (Wildlife Acceptance Capacity) they did not mention the one factor that might conceivably affect this attitude. Because the researchers obviously knew that beavers were ‘icky’, and grant money was freely awarded to folks who said so. The good news for the authors is that as the population climbs more and more folks will get annoyed and become more willing to kill them.
The response by farmers’ leaders to the idea of ‘rewilding’ shows how unaccustomed to challenge they are
Following successful beaver reintroductions in two parts of Scotland, the first release in Wales could be about to happen. Photograph: Peter Lilja/Getty Images
Their dams, burrows and ditches and the branches they drag into the water create habitats for a host of other species: water voles, otters, ducks, frogs, fish and insects. In both Sweden and Poland, the trout in beaver ponds are on average larger than those in the other parts of the streams: the ponds provide them with habitats and shelter they cannot find elsewhere²,³. Young salmon grow faster and are in better condition where beavers make their dams than in other stretches4. The total weight of all the creatures living in the water may be between two and five times greater in beaver ponds than in the undammed sections5. Beavers slow rivers down. They reduce scouring and erosion. They create small wetlands and boggy areas. They trap much of the load that rivers carry6, ensuring that the water runs more clearly.
Beavers slow rivers down. They reduce scouring and erosion. They create small wetlands and boggy areas. They trap much of the load that rivers carry6, ensuring that the water runs more clearly.
Excellent beaver defense in this article. Where’s it from? Since it uses a word like “hegemony” we know it can’t be American because that’s too many syllables for US readers. Maybe you’re thinking ‘it’s just a blog’. But it’s a blog for the GUARDIAN, and its a blog with FOOTNOTES. And it’s really really good. I think it’s primary argument is that farming interests are treated as the only rural interests and ignore 95% of the population. He goes on to talk about reintroducing Lynx and halting the badger cull, but it’s a great read. With great footnotes.
Yesterday was a good beaver news cycle. There was also this from Idaho
Beaver pond in the high water of June. SE Idaho. Beaver remake creeks, streams, springs, even seeps. They usually greatly increase the diversity of wildlife in an area with their ponds. It is surprisingly hard to get Fish and Game departments to take them seriously, have a rational trapping season and to keep people from just killing them. Copyright Ralph Maughan. June 2013
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides.
Of course I looked up Dr Maughan and found that he is in Pocotello Idaho, which (as it happens) is where our friend Mike Settel got the grant from Audubon to count beavers so I wrote both of them to make sure they were friends! (Because that’s what beaver cruise directors do). I was a little chilled by the “educated and scientific” comments on his post though. Check this out from someone who calls himself CodyCoyote.
But here is an interesting fact about Beavers. When a pair mate, they will have 4-6 kits. When the time comes as the kids grow up , the parent beavers will selectively kill all but one male and one female from their litter, and drive them off to find a new territory of their own. It’s their way of dispersing, increasing habitat and domain , and assuring good genetic viability. But it’s a little draconian to us primates.
Beaver death panels? Just so we’re clear, this isn’t true, has never been true, and would never be true. A parent wouldn’t nuture children for two years just to set up their own little “HUNGER GAMES” right in the middle of their living room and see who lives. What frightens me about this comment is the pseudo-science of it. He uses appropriate words like “diperse” and “litter” and “viability” and I’m going to bet he worked (or works) for some government agency involved in the regulation of beavers. USDA springs to mind, but maybe it was USFS or Fish and Game. He’s educated enough to toss out words like draconian and he is still astonishingly beaver ignorant.
It’s also why you cannot transplant more than a mated pair of beaver anywhere, much as you’d like to have several colonies of beavers out there. I know of a couple instances where conservation-minded ranchers actually tried to restore beavers to their stream in the Cody area here, and they plunked down as many as six animals at once in the same stream basin. They immediately eliminated themselves by infighting. For not understanding beaver behavior, they overdid it and underachieved their goal of rebuilding riparian areas overgrazed by cattle in critical winter range for wildlife.
Information is not a banquet table, Cody. You can’t select randomly the tidbits you might like (the pasta salad and cheese slices) and put them together on a plate based on your own preferences. Yes beavers are territorial and won’t tolerate being dumped together with 5 strangers to happily start a new commune. This is why you relocate INTACT families. I know its not as convenient, but its a lot more successful.
Where did Cody get his information you wonder? A field manual for beaver management from USDA? I think the reason rumors like this and the Belarus killing get such success is that folks like to think about beavers actions are ruthless, so that their own actions look justified in response.
Cheer from Cheryl who made the 4:30 trek this am and was duly rewarded.
Kit 4:50 Escobar bridgeChecking out raccoon on bank.Mom come by and wrestled with kit then both went to annex where mom climbed bank for fennel. She sat below bridge with kit,wrestled some more before coming back to lodge.Second adult went towards annex 5:10.Beaver working on the dam at 6:05 until 6:20.Mom mallard and 2 big babies
Whooohooo! I’m glad Cheryl got to see baby 1 even if it was too dark for photos! Soon my pretties!
In the heart of San Jose, nestled between the glass and steel of HP Pavillion and a busy highway, some long-unseen locals have moved back to town. Beavers have returned to a spot at the confluence of Los Gatos Creek and the Guadalupe River for the first time in 150 years, setting off a scurry of excitement among conservationists.
“I was elated to hear about the beavers,” said Leslee Hamilton, executive director of the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy in San Jose. “The Guadalupe River seemed like a prime candidate [for beavers] so I wasn’t surprised when they appeared, merely ecstatic.”
Close your eyes for a second and just imagine a world where every mayor and every city manager and every conservancy who finds beavers on their property reacts in exactly the same way as Leslee. Imagine what it would be like if every state park and every city park and every national park got ECSTATIC to have beavers in their borders. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m apparently not the only one any more.
When beavers arrived in Martinez seven years ago, an influx of other species came in on their coattails. Sacramento spittail, a member of the carp family seen most often in the Central Valley, and American mink made an appearance along Alhambra Creek. Perryman attributes this to the beaver’s role as a “keystone species”—a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its environment.
“Beavers do these really specific behaviours that create the conditions for the next species that will follow,” explained Perryman
The reporter Alessandra really did a nice and thorough job talking to the major players for this article and it will be in the magazine version in July. There was lots of information that never survived the editing room floor but I’m thrilled she really seemed to take the coppicing message to heart. Play this video all the way through.
To be honest, I’m a little bit disgruntled by the wary approach this article and others have displayed about beaver effect on fish. In my castor-centric opinion Bay Nature has been overly slow to get the beaver-salmon-steelhead memo. I personally talked to the editor about it in 2009 at the JMA awards dinner and directly talked to the publisher about it in 2011 flyway festival. They both said, send us the articles and we’ll look into it but when I gave them multiple sources and Michael Pollock’s personal cell phone number, nothing happened. One might think their foot-dragging has something to do with this:
In some situations, beaver dams can benefit native fish species including chinook salmon and steelhead trout by creating ideal conditions for juvenile fish (smolt) to mature in deep water ponds. “We would look at it on a site specific basis with consideration for the threatened steelhead, and get a professional opinion from a fishery biologist to see whether the benefits would outweigh the impact,” said Titus of the water district.
(Because you know, sometimes it’s good for fish to have deep pools of cooler temperatures, more food so that they can get bigger before they swim to sea and stand a better chance of not getting eaten while they grow to maturity and swim back, and sometimes you know, there are some fish that, for reasons of their own, are just suicidal and want to end it all, and we want to make sure beavers don’t get in the way of that.)
For goodness sake. I will admit there may be some portion of some stream for some fish species in the broad complexity of the planet where beavers produce a negative effect but I expect my water district and NATURE MAGAZINE to be familiar enough with the science to know that when these unlikely circumstances arrive they are going to have to PROVE it. Doug needs to come to the beaver festival. I’d like to introduce him to some folks. Especially the winner of last year’s golden pipe award. (Which he received for spreading the good news about beaver and salmon and steelhead)
Okay. I’m done ranting. This was a still a delightful article, I love seeing Cheryl’s photos so prominent, and Alessandra is about the only reporter that I’ve been able to impress the bird relationship on, so I’m very happy that this survived the cutting sheers. Thanks so much for your good cheer! I look forward to the print copy, and if you have time go comment on the article and thank her.
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Martinez Beaver Update Cheryl was down last night and took some lovely photos of our family who has been working up a storm to feed new hungry mouths, taking a tree in the annex and primary dam.
Adult brings willow to lodge: Photo Cheryl Reynolds
I was down at 4:30 this am, where one adult beaver was literally on sentry, prowling back and forth across the creek, until he saw me in the shadows and then SLAP! The alarm was sent to our mystery kits. Jon and I eventually saw one black sausage paddling in the darkness beside the old lodge who ducked and wasn’t seen again. Nice to know they’re being healthy and guarded, but I can’t wait for photos! And nice to see mom spending quality time with Jr. Am I the only one who thinks she’s reassuring him, “Don’t worry. You’ll always be my first baby”.
Linda Huebner
Deputy Director, Advocacy
Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Recognize this adorable photo? 
You’ll probably want to go read the entire article here. Hopefully we’ll get plenty of interest for this year’s beaver festival!
Just so you know, Hopkinton is literally 70 miles away from Beaver Solutions. Mike could drive over and fix those culverts in an hour. I wrote of course but they haven’t responded. I shouldn’t be surprise. You have to work very hard to be this ignorant so close to MIT.
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I don’t know if I can take many more of these terrifyingly lost dispersers looking for a place to call home. I am so grateful ours have an excellent waterway to travel. You may or may not remember that PEI has a stunningly bad record when it comes to beaver management – prompting one of 
